Los Angeles band Guides is eager to play Audie’s Olympic Tavern

On their first trip to Fresno, the members of the Los Angeles post-rock band Guides found themselves at the end of the night saddled up to the bar at Audie’s Olympic Tavern. They didn’t play the Tower District nightclub, mind you, they just stopped in on the advice of locals.

They were immediately taken by the club’s atmosphere and its owner, Audie Pardon.

“Walking into Audie’s, we just wanted to come back,” says Chris Cogswell, Guides’ guitarist/vocalist. He’s since told others about the place, how it reminds him of his favorite bar in Austin, Texas. It’s a “great room, with cool people,” he says.

Guides will finally play the club on Saturday, Dec. 19, with locals Tomi Jean and Sharks Of Dance.

Guides started in 2012 as a collaboration between Cogswell, drummer Jayson Larson (ex-Death Cab for Cutie) and bassist Be Hussey (who played with the Merge Record’s band Radar Bros.). The band is known for sonically layered guitar rock driven by hazy melodies. Categorically, this is post-punk, although there is some “gothic-ness” mixed in, Cogswell says.

Of course, the band’s identity is not what any of the individual members might have chosen, he says.

“We had to get out and play shows and hear what other people thought about it,” he says.

In September, the band released a five-song EP, “Abstract Mind.” It’s a complicated record with a lot of arrangements that makes it difficult to play live, Cogswell says. The finished product belies the stream- of-consciousness nature of the recording.

“We weren’t really thinking that much,” Cogswell says, hence the name.

The thinking came later, he says.

“We got heady with the edits and arrangements.”

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Los Angeles band Guides is eager to play Audie’s Olympic Tavern."